


Jaded

by coreopsis



Series: southern night duology [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: First Time, M/M, a touch of internalized homophobia, southern heat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-04-20
Updated: 2001-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-30 23:51:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3956569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coreopsis/pseuds/coreopsis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One southern summer night, a drifter helps a young man accept himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jaded

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, 2001!me really abused ellipses (yeah, I know I still do, but I think not quite as much...maybe?). Sorry about that. However, at least I did edit out all the asterisks used as emphasis. Ah, the good ol' days of plain text only.
> 
> This story actually first appeared in a zine but for the life of me, I can't remember what the title was. I no longer have my comp copy. I did make a few changes as I was editing it to upload here, but nothing really substantial.

It's hot...constant-stream-of-sweat-down-his-back, can't-even-stand-a-t-shirt hot. The heat rises up from the sidewalks and streets like shimmery apparitions--now you see 'em, now you don't. Drew had only been in Memphis two days when he walked into a barbershop and got a buzz cut. Now three weeks later, his hair's starting to grow out again and he can feel sweat prickling in it when he swipes his bandanna over his forehead. He's never been so glad for the holes in his jeans, and he'd give anything for a cool breeze right now. But all he gets is more sunburn on his peeling shoulders and hazy, still air that dulls the senses and even makes the flies lazy. 

The foreman-- _Mister_ Brown--gives him that get-back-to-work look so he puts his cap back on and crams the bandanna in his back pocket. He hefts another bag of concrete mix and dumps it in the wheelbarrow. His nose is so full of the pale grey dust that he hardly notices anymore the cloud that poofs up when he does it. When the grit gets in his mouth, he just spits it out and keeps going. It coats everything from his faded blue cap to his well-broken-in work boots. He looks like a ghost except for the dark tracks his sweat cuts through the dust. 

Every day by eleven a.m., he's got a dull ache in his back. His last job was months ago and wasn't exactly strenuous. Oh, he didn't use his brain there either, but it paid okay. Night watchman at a warehouse full of stolen televisions and VCRs--not the kind of place you want a bonded professional on the job. He'd still be there if the cops hadn't raided the place two hours after he left for the day. Timing is everything, isn't that what they say? 

That was a powerful sign that it was time for him to hit the road again. Twenty-eight years of twisting and turning and falling through the cracks and then to get caught for someone else's crime? No, thank you. He's paid enough stupid tax for one lifetime already. 

The handle of his shovel is hot, even through his gloves and he tries to imagine he's holding a cold beer instead. But that just makes him thirsty and it's not quitting time yet. This is his last batch of the day, and then it's clean up your crap, take your paycheck and get the hell out of here for the weekend. Two full days that he can do...what? His motel's air conditioning is elderly, to put it nicely, or a piece of shit, as it's more commonly called by those who live with it. 

He knows how he'll spend most of Saturday-- at one of the big cineplexes, moving from theatre to theatre, watching movies and staying cool. His favorite one gives free refills, and he can live on coke and popcorn the whole day. 

Sunday, he'll sleep as much as he can, watch a little TV, and maybe go out when the sun starts to go down. He'll go to the park and watch the young boys play basketball and sell drugs. They hold crack and crank and weed, and yet look down on junkies. Like they're somehow on the side of the angels and smack is the tool of the devil. Since he never buys from them, they probably think Drew is either a cop or a pervert, but as long as he leaves them alone they leave him alone. They just watch him carefully, especially when the little kids are around. 

They have nothing to worry about, but he doesn't-- _can't_ \-- tell them that. They wouldn't believe him, and he doesn't care enough. He doesn't give a fuck about anybody in this whole city. Not the guys he works with, not his neighbors--most of which are either hookers, low end drug dealers, or drifters like him, suspicious and quiet and mind your own damn business. Pay your rent on time and keep the noise down so nobody notices you exist. 

And he thinks this is a life worth living. It works for him. If he stops to think about it, he knows he's not particularly happy, but then who is? Having a house in the 'burbs and two car payments doesn't ensure happiness either. He gets a charge out of throwing his stuff in the car and taking off for wherever. He tries not to think too much about where he'll go next, just go go go. Windows down, radio up, and how ever many miles he can coax out of the hunk of junk this time around. 

"Hey, uh... Drew..." The voice of that kid from up north stabs into his head and he grunts an acknowledgement while he keeps on working. The end of this brutal day is in sight and he's not going to slow down just because some guy's gotten chatty. 

"I was wondering if you wanted to go get a beer with me after work. If you know any good bars? I thought since you're from here..." Jeremy trails off and Drew wonders where that last idea came from. 

He's going to say no, but he glances up and sees the hope in the guy's face. Drew never could kick a puppy. "I'm not from here, but I go to the Royal Oak Bar and Grill sometimes. It's all right." 

"Oh. Yeah, I go by that place all the time. Are you going tonight?" 

"Probably," is all he says, but he knows he will...now. 

"Well, then maybe I'll see you there." Jeremy gives him a relieved grin as he finishes up his own job. It's all Drew can do not to roll his eyes. Jeremy's young and must not have been gone from home for very long. He still needs somebody, needs somebody to know him. He'll learn some day that that is really the last thing he needs. 

So, now Drew has a date of sorts. Big fun there. Drinking in a bar with somebody who'll want to get to know him. He hates that. Always has, ever since he got old enough to learn what a secret is and that every person on earth has at least one. Keeping secrets is a challenge for most people, but not for Drew. He's got so little to say that one less thing makes no difference. 

~~-~~ 

Drew sits at a table in the bar in clean jeans and t-shirt. His back already feels damp with sweat, even though the place is air-conditioned. The temperature isn't going down any with the sun. He's waiting. 

Jeremy will show up, no question in Drew's mind, and he'll put up with the guy for a couple hours. Then he'll go back to his room where the silence is only broken by the tinny-sounding speaker on the television. 

The jukebox here plays country music, and that doesn't bother Drew too much. He's gotten to like some of the singers-- Wynonna's wail, George Strait's cowboy simplicity, the harmonies of Diamond Rio and Lonestar. 

Some guy's singing about riding in a rodeo when Drew hears a tentative, "Hey." 

There's Jeremy hovering by his table, with his reddish wheat straw hair slicked down fresh from the shower, short sleeves and white pearled snaps on his crisp western shirt. He's got *creases* down the front of his jeans and Drew just has to shake his head at the mental picture of this not-much-more-than-a-boy ironing his jeans. 

Drew lifts his chin in that backward nod of greeting and takes a swig of his beer. Jeremy slides into the chair across the table and smiles nervously at the waitress who stops by for their orders. "Umm...what's good, Drew?" 

Drew looks up at the waitress and says, "Double cheeseburger, no onions, fries, and another Red Dog." He shrugs at Jeremy. "Same thing I always get." 

"I'll have the same then," Jeremy smiles up at the waitress again, but it falters when she asks for ID and he has to fumble his wallet out of his back pocket to prove that he's twenty-one. 

Drew licks an errant drop of beer off his bottom lip and ponders how hot the blush on Jeremy's cheeks must feel. He looks like he could set something on fire with it, but Drew doesn't laugh at him. He remembers the humiliation of being carded, but distantly, like something that happened in another lifetime. 

"So...this place is nice. Not too crowded yet. They ever have live bands? I mean, they've got a stage and all." Jeremy chatters as if to cover the moment. 

Drew looks over at the stage and thinks about it. "I've never seen any. Maybe they used to and quit." 

"Yeah, probably couldn't compete with the bigger places." The waitress brings their beers and Drew can see Jeremy visibly relax after two sips. "The jukebox is okay, I guess. You must like country music?" 

"I can take it or leave it. I come here because it's close to my room, the beer's cold, and the food doesn't suck." Drew watches and waits. As Jeremy should know from their lunchbreaks together, he's never been good at making casual conversation. Tonight, for some unknown reason, he almost wishes he were. 

"Room? Are you staying in that motel down the road?" Surprise and the unspoken words 'that dump' in his voice, and Drew just nods and almost smiles at the mental scramble to catch up and not offend visible in the ginger-lashed blue eyes. "Oh, that's...cool. I mean, to have your own place and all. I've been living with my aunt ever since I came here from Indiana a month ago." 

"A month? You been here longer'n me, bubba." 

"No shit? For some reason, I thought you were from here--you know, before you said you weren't." He surprises Drew by not asking the next logical question, instead saying, "How do you like it?" 

Drew thinks about it carefully before answering. "Same as most places, I reckon. It's too damn hot though." 

"Oh yeah, I didn't know it was going to be this hot and humid. My aunt swears it's not usually this bad and it's going to get better, but I think she's lying so I'll stay and keep paying her rent." 

Drew takes another sip of his beer and rolls it around with his tongue, letting it cool his mouth off a little. They've exhausted the weather as a subject of conversation and their supper isn't even on the table yet. He sighs and thinks this night may be even longer than he'd thought. 

Jeremy looks like he's about to say something, but the waitress bustles up, slams down their plates and a bottle of ketchup, asks if they need anything else, and then hurries off again before they have a chance to answer. Drew raises an eyebrow at Jeremy who laughs in response, and they both start to relax a little bit more. 

Hungry from a long day of hard work, they put away the burgers and fries in silence. And Drew is glad for the chance to concentrate on one thing at a time. He eats with single-minded purpose--the plate is there to be conquered and he does it with dispatch so he can move on to the next thing. Being friendly is too much of a strain on him, but he'll concede to being sociable to Jeremy, even if that name makes Drew think of a little kid for some reason. 

Jeremy may look young, but he's full-grown. Hell, he's got half an inch and 20 pounds on Drew, most of it pure muscle. He's no kid, but he does seem a little unsure of himself tonight, which just tickles Drew to no end since he probably has more practice socializing in a week than Drew has in a typical year. 

Jeremy's at the bottom of his bottle and picking at the label when he says, "Since you're here with me, I guess you don't have a girlfriend?" 

"No." But Drew thinks about the last woman he knew, a cute girl back in St. Louis who smiled a lot. She worked at a convenience store that got robbed at least once a month, and when Drew would ask her why she didn't find a safer job she'd just laugh and say she already had a job and she hadn't been killed yet. As far as Drew knows, she's still there and still getting robbed every month. He never really told her he was leaving, and now he wonders if she ever misses him or even thinks of him at all. Probably not, he figures after a brief reflection. Why would she? He never gave her anything that she couldn't get from a dozen other guys or her own hand for that matter. 

"I haven't met any...one here yet either." The weirdly placed pause and Jeremy's confessional tone drag Drew out of his thoughts and back to the here and now. He realizes that he doesn't know what he'll do if the guy's coming on to him. On the one hand, he's good looking in a fresh-scrubbed farmboy way, but on the other hand, he's a little *too* clean and fresh. A little too unspoiled for Drew to take seriously. 

"Why don't you go talk to those girls? Offer to buy one a drink." Drew nods toward a couple of college age women reading over the selections on the jukebox and watches Jeremy closely as his cheeks turn red and his eyes go big. 

"Oh, I couldn't do that. I mean, there's two of them and all." He tears his eyes away from the girls and glances at Drew. "Unless you want to..." 

Drew shakes his head. "No, but you go ahead." He's enjoying the other man's discomfort, but after a while he motions at the waitress to bring them both another beer. The night can only improve if he gets a little drunk. 

 

Clutching a new bottle of beer, Jeremy leans over the freshly cleared table and gazes at Drew intently. "If I tell you something, do you swear not to tell the guys at work?" 

Drew's immediate thought is 'oh shit, he's gonna come out to me in the middle of this redneck bar' but he just nods and says, "Yeah, sure, whatever." 

Jeremy leans even closer and says very seriously with a touch of embarrassment, "I've never been good at talking to girls." 

"You? Naw, I don't believe that for a minute," Drew deadpans, because he just can't resist tweaking him a bit. 

"Seriously. I don't have anything in common with them. I have no idea what to--how to--" Jeremy's all earnest and convincing, and then he catches on. "Very funny. You know what I mean." 

Drew feels the corner of his mouth twitch into a half-smile, as Jeremy continues staring at him like he's willing him to read between the lines. Drew does--or thinks he does anyway--but he has no idea what to say. He doesn't know what the kid wants him to say or expects him to say, which could be two entirely different things. "I dunno. If you don't want to talk to them, then don't." 

Jeremy visibly swallows and Drew's caught by the frantic bob of his Adam's apple, like some creature trying to escape his throat. "That's just it, Drew. I...I don't...umm, I don't really want to. But I should, right?" 

Drew drains the last of his beer and shrugs one shoulder. "I dunno that either. I've never worried much about 'should'. Do whatever the fuck you want to and maybe that is what you should do." 

"That's what you do?" Jeremy's open face crinkles up in skepticism. Doesn't believe any thing could be that simple, that anyone could be so unconcerned with something he's taken for granted. Drew reads every bit of it in his face before he speaks again. "People can't just go around doing whatever they want to." 

"Why not? Who's stopping you?" 

"Everybody! I can't rob a bank just because I want to. The police would stop me. I can't just decide it's okay to not like girls. People would--my family would kick my ass. It's not normal." 

Drew frowns at that last bit. "Normal? What the fuck is normal? If you don't like girls, then that's normal for you. Everything else is bullshit, boy, and don't let nobody tell you different." 

"But what if--" 

"You deal with it. Whatever happens. Why're you expecting me to hold your hand? I'm not your friend. I'm nothing to you." 

"Oh." Jeremy looks away for the first time in what seems like forever, and Drew's glad to be out of the spotlight of his eyes. Nobody's that innocent, that open, that fucking desperate to get something substantial out of nothing. 

"You're right, I guess. I thought... Never mind." Jeremy laughs this time and it's caustic and faintly bitter, which cheers Drew considerably. The kid is finally learning. 

"You thought we were buddies." Drew nods, all understanding and it's okay, don't worry about it. 

Jeremy turns his eyes back to Drew's and there's a new hardness, an old look that Drew has seen many times--most often in the mirror. "Now you think I'm queer--" he spits the word out with (self?)loathing and defiance "--and why would you want to be friends with that, huh?" 

Drew raises his eyebrows in mild surprise and wishes he'd had a few more beers because he's not drunk and he really should be for this. "Look, bubba, I don't care if you fuck girls or boys or dogs or...or mailboxes, as long as they're old enough to know what they're doing. But I don't do the whole friendship thing. It gets messy." 

Jeremy nods and sighs. He looks like he's starting to get it--well, something anyway. "I understand. You don't want to be my friend, and that's fine. But what if..." His voice trails away and he looks around them, a picture of sudden paranoia. "Can we get out of here for a minute? I'm getting claustrophobic." 

Drew doesn't say anything, just waves their waitress over to get their bills. She takes their money and makes change on the spot, so two minutes later they're walking outside into the hot summer night. The sun has finally gone down and a sulky, sultry breeze has picked up while they were inside but it's too weak to even stir up the dust in the unpaved parking lot. 

Drew walks down the road toward his motel and lets Jeremy follow. He stops under a sugar maple tree and lights a cigarette. Mottled by shadows cast by streetlights through the leaves, Jeremy doesn't look so...angelic. He's got a bit of the devil in him now, darkness in his baby blues that's never been there in the illuminative sunshine of their worksite. He remembers--very dimly--what it felt like to go from one to the other. He was a whole lot younger than this kid when his darkness set in. He's lived with it and become worthy of it. 

"You really don't want a friend like me...Jeremy." Takes a drag and lets smoke leak out his nose, and then says as kindly as he's able, "It'd just fuck you up. Trust me." 

"I don't trust you." Jeremy smiles a flash of white in the darkness. "You don't want me to, and for some reason...that matters." 

"That's a bad idea." Drew watches the kid's body language instead of his face, and sees how his feet are apart and his hands held out away from his sides. With his hips tilted just the slightest bit to one side, he might as well be saying, "Come on and take me." 

"Why?" Jeremy's hands twitch, but his gaze remains steady. "If nothing ever matters, you'd be living in a vacuum." 

"Haven't you heard that in space, no one can hear you scream?" Drew shakes his head and clamps his lips down on his cigarette just a little too hard. "Trust me, don't trust me--I don't give a shit. Just don't make trouble at work.. I'd like to keep this job for a few more weeks at least." 

"What do you think I'm going to do? Tell everyone that we went out tonight and had a few beers and discussed my nonexistent yet fucked up sex life? Like I've got some so-called alternative lifestyle?" He laughs shortly and the bitterness is back at the edges. "How fucking stupid do you think I am? Do I look like I want to get my ass kicked? Most of those guys hate fags." 

"And what makes you think I don't?" 

"Gut instinct," Jeremy answers immediately, like he's already thought about it. "You seem too smart for that selective shit. You either don't hate anyone or you hate everyone equally." 

Drew looks him up and down and says slowly, "Innocent maybe, but not stupid. You're out of your depth. What would you do if I did this?" He thrusts his hand out and grabs the front of Jeremy's shirt, hauling him up against his body. Between the scent of his starched shirt melting in the heat radiating off his body and the harsh sound of his indrawn breath, Drew almost feels overwhelmed but he tosses his cigarette away and completes the motion. 

Jeremy's broad chest slams into him and Drew can feel the kid's heartbeat through the walls of their ribcages, pumping hard and fast, sending blood to his face in a blush and to his groin in a rush. That quick he can feel Jeremy's dick going hard against his, a pulsating reminder of how alone they are in the darkness under this tree. And there's no traffic on the road to pull them back to sanity. 

His mouth a scant inch away from Jeremy's, so close he can taste the beer on his breath, Drew hears a low rough voice that he barely recognizes as his own. "Danger, Will Robinson. You're officially in alien territory. Go back to the safety of your ship before it's too late." 

Eyes wide with terrorized excitement, Jeremy whispers, "I don't care. I don't wanna go back." And he moves impossibly closer to Drew, snugging their cocks together through the chaste barriers of their jeans. 

"I don't want you. Why do you think I do?" 

"Because I can feel you. You're getting hard against me--unless you want me to believe that's your belt buckle." 

"Maybe I should have asked what do you think I'll do?" 

"Teach me. Take advantage of me. Hurt me." Jeremy does that Adam's apple bob again and admits shakily, "Hell, I don't know, but I want it." 

"You have no idea." Drew shakes his head and releases Jeremy's shirt so that he can move his hands down to his sturdy farmboy hips where he squeezes just a little too tight. Turns Jeremy around and pushes him hard-- 

\--toward the motel. Yeah, he's gonna do it. The kid needs the lesson and he needs. He needs to break the boredom, to get off, to feel...something...maybe. He just needs. 

~~-~~ 

The air conditioner must have been working overtime because the room is about two steps down from a sauna, but the AC's off now and it's dead silent. Drew watches Jeremy jump when the door slams with a note of finality. Nerves are good. They'll keep him on his toes. But when he turns around, his face is almost fearless. His eyes are a little too bright in the gloom, but basically he looks calm. 

Flicking the light switch by the door, Drew adds the bedside light to the bathroom light he left on earlier. Now he can see Jeremy's face more clearly when he pulls his t-shirt over his head--even though it's nothing he hasn't seen before at work, the kid's eyes brighten impossibly. Then he starts popping open those pearl snaps, his fingers moving faster and faster until he's ripping his shirttails out of his waistband. Eager and ready and still unsure, but wanting it, whatever "it" happens to be. 

Drew moves closer and Jeremy freezes. Did he think they were going to do it on opposite sides of the room or what? Drew shakes off the thought and shoves him facedown onto the bed. He reaches around one-handed to get to the front of Jeremy's jeans and it's much more difficult than allowing him to undress first. But Drew likes the position and how it forces the question: Are you _sure_ you want this? 

"Uhh, Drew..." Oh, now he'll say stop, wait, don't, I changed my mind. But Jeremy's muffled voice continues with, "I can't breathe like this." 

With a snort, Drew takes his hand off the middle of Jeremy's back and plants it on the bed next to him instead. Jeremy lifts his head and upper chest up a few inches, making an intriguing arch of his body as he takes a deep breath and says, "That's better. Thanks." 

Such a polite little farmboy. He'll make some lucky man a fine bottom someday, but it won't be Drew. He helps him turn over and says, "Right answer, bubba." 

"What was the question?" But Jeremy's smiling when he says it and he's reaching for the front of Drew's jeans, fingers outstretched like cat claws ready to scratch. And he's tearing at the button and zipper, trying to get at the hard flesh underneath and Drew returns the favor, only he does it more slowly and carefully. "I umm...I've never been fucked by a guy before." 

"And you're not gonna be now." Drew slides one hand inside the gaping fly of Jeremy's jeans and gives his cotton-covered erection a squeeze. The gasp that action elicits runs over his skin like an electric current, tingly and hot. The air-conditioning unit kicks on, sputtering out a tepid stream of air, but the sound of Jeremy's excited breathing fills Drew's head like a porn soundtrack as he takes his bare cock in his hand. 

Drew knows what his hand feels like--after all, he's felt it plenty of times on his own dick. So work-roughened that it's almost too much on such delicate skin, but the calluses add a little extra something to those sensitive spots, like right there at the underside edge of the head-- 

"Oh-oh-good-that's-so-good..." 

\--or right here at the base of his balls. A trembly exhale becomes a moan, and Drew feels his own dick jump in the confines of his underwear. He rubs harder with the tip of his little finger while the others curl and roll around Jeremy's balls. He lowers his mouth to blow a moist breath over the wet head of Jeremy's cock and startles a sound out of the kid that seems to echo in the air, so colorful and vibrant that Drew can almost see it when he raises his head again. 

Moving up a little so that he can lie on the bed beside Jeremy, Drew puts his mouth next to his ear and warns, "Walls like paper. Don't make me shut you up." 

A sharp little bite to his earlobe to punctuate the warning and then Drew takes his erection in hand again, stroking in a well-practiced groove of his own choosing, the rhythm that sets himself off and all Jeremy can say is, "Sssssorry. Just don't stop. Please." 

"Always polite." Drew takes his mouth then--takes it to consume and there's nothing tender or affectionate in the rough kisses. So when Jeremy comes, Drew's teeth worrying his bottom lip muffles the shout. 

Drew draws back and rubs his wet hand across Jeremy's stomach, smearing come and sweat together in a slick-sticky mess, feeling fierce satisfaction that he did this. He's first man to do this to this person. 

Jeremy's gasping like a fish pulled rudely from a lake, and Drew's still hard and starting to ache with the tightness squeezing him from his belly to his balls. He's trying to decide what he wants to do next when Jeremy struggles to a sitting position and looks down at the erection protruding from Drew's open jeans. 

With shaking fingers Jeremy pulls Drew's underwear down, releasing his cock into his hand. He shoots Drew a look, but Drew says nothing, just lies back and lets him choose. He looks back down at the cock in his hand and then back at Drew's face, then back and forth a couple more times, until Drew is ready to throw him across the room and fuck his lifeless corpse just to get off. But before that happens... 

Jeremy licks his lips, red and abused as they are, and lowers his head. A few inches from where Drew desperately wants him, he stops and looks at Drew again. "Can I?" 

"You fucking better." 

"I don't know..." Jeremy starts to waver but Drew stares him down and grabs his hair. He twines his fingers through the sweat slippery strands that smell like strawberries of all the cliched things-- even over the sharp bitter spunk scent that permeates the room. Drew will be living with it for a day or so, until it fades and blends with the overall musty, well-used atmosphere of the room. 

"Just do it." And then, offers a conciliatory, "It's okay." But really he's thinking that if Jeremy doesn't keep moving, he's going to kill him. Quick, painless, but he'll have to do it just to get some relief. He briefly fantasizes about wrapping his hands around Jeremy's neck and squeezing as hard as he can, but...what the fuck? He kinda likes the kid and really doesn't want to hurt him. Huh. Not sure when that happened and not sure he likes it, but then-- 

\--wet tentative licks on the overheated, stretched too tight skin of his cock, and then lips closing so softly over the tip. Teeth carefully covered--Jeremy might not have done this before but he's been thinking about it, oh yes, he has. Smart boy knows his limitations too and doesn't try to take too much too quickly, just lets those first couple inches or so lie on his tongue that he flutters and undulates as if he really knows what he's doing. And his mouth is so hot and wet and when he sucks, Drew can almost feel the fine ridges of his palate pressing into his cock. It's so good and so right, and he's sucking and sucking and then Drew is coming and coming and not making a sound as he shoots his load into the back of Jeremy's throat. 

Jeremy pulls away with a gagging cough, and Drew hopes he's not about to get puked on, but after a second or two, Jeremy's all right. He clears his throat and a shy smile plays around his flushed, swollen lips. He looks up at Drew with surprise and delight in his eyes, like a kid who's just discovered that he can ride without the training wheels after all. 

"Am I crazy to want this so much? To think about it all the time?" Jeremy's voice is hushed with suppressed excitement, and it drops to a whisper when he adds, "Liking the taste of cock and come."

Drew raises a hand to wipe the sweat off his forehead before it can drip into his eyes. The room is cooler than outside, but not enough to make a difference to sex-worked bodies. He ponders just what constitutes crazy for a moment before answering the question. "Nah, it's normal. For you." 

Jeremy clears his throat and curls his hand around Drew's thigh, just above the knee. "You're a great guy, Drew." 

"Don't be a girl, bubba. It'll only get you hurt." Drew sits up and puts himself back inside his jeans, waits and watches while Jeremy does the same. "I'm still not your friend." 

"Will you...umm, maybe teach me some...other things?" 

Drew shakes his head and wonders if anything he's said has made it into his brain. But he can't deny the boy is hot and Drew did feel something for a moment or two. He should figure out what it is that he feels, but in the meantime... "Maybe." 

"Then can I see you tomorrow?" 

"No, I'm busy." Drew stands up and hands the kid his shirt. "Now get going. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here." 

"I'll see you at work on Monday then. Or I could call you on Sunday?" There he goes making a question out of a statement again--a habit that Drew has noticed in passing, and he lets it pass this time too. 

"Bye, Jeremy." He pushes him toward the door and thinks what a smart idea to never let tricks take their shoes off. Gets 'em out the door so much quicker. 

"Good night, Drew." And then just before the door swings shut in his face, "Thanks for everything." 

Drew sighs to himself. "Whatever." Then turns on the TV and goes to take a shower, thinking he should have moved north instead of further south because damn, it's hot. 

 

The End.


End file.
